Wood Too Soft?

[Mike Goetzke]

Finally get some lathe time after a couple long flatwork projects and my tools won't cut. This is some wood I found on a golf coarse a while back. It was sealed and bagged. I think I could drive my live center through the blank it's so soft:



Is this firewood?

Mike

[Dwight Rutherford]

If your tools are really sharp and you are getting this then ,yes I would suggest it is fire wood.

[Brian Brown]

The punky portion is to bland to look good. I'm not even sure that it would make good firewood. I hope you were wearing good breathing protection for that mold. That stuff is rough on your lungs. You could stabilize this wood for turning, but I just don't think it is worth it.

[Mike Goetzke]

OK - Thanks - I'll toss it. In the mean time I tossed a roughed out walnut bowl and finished turned it and it was much more fun.

[Mark Greenbaum]

Finally get some lathe time after a couple long flatwork projects and my tools won't cut. This is some wood I found on a golf coarse a while back. It was sealed and bagged. I think I could drive my live center through the blank it's so soft:



Is this firewood?

Mike

Too punky - lifes too short to turn bad wood, and it's too dangerous in many ways.

[Lloyd Butler]

It is really too soft for a usable turned piece, but you can use it as practice. Dust mask should be used. With your tools freshly sharpened, try and take a very small light cut with just the nose of the tool and move the tools slowly to try and get a smooth cut. You will need to experiment with the cutting angle to try and get a more skewed slicing cut and very light.

You will not get a glass smooth cut, but in the end you will learn to slow down and have soft hands and ways to get a clean cut for wood that may have a hard to cut soft spot.

[Art Mann]

You can see that the sap wood is well into decay while the more rot resistant heart wood is still pretty well intact.